


Who Rubbed Off The Settings On This Washing Machine

by lobac



Series: Vaguely Chronological Bouts Of Introspection [4]
Category: Venom (Comics)
Genre: First Kiss, Fluff, Obsessive Love, Other, Setting Off an Avalanche of Kisses, Very mild body horror, whether or not eddie is wearing underwear throughout this is up to the reader's discretion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-17
Updated: 2019-12-17
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:08:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21825703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lobac/pseuds/lobac
Summary: Set right after the symbiote comes back from the dead in Amazing Spider-Man #346. Will they figure out what kisses are? Will they figure it out together??? Signs point to yes.
Relationships: Eddie Brock/Venom Symbiote
Series: Vaguely Chronological Bouts Of Introspection [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1431601
Comments: 12
Kudos: 53





	Who Rubbed Off The Settings On This Washing Machine

“Alive?!”

Alive.

At the moment of contact, the word echoes through their mind, carrying the voice of their enemy. Shocked, disgusted, terrified. A condemnation, then.

A celebration, now.

It travels through their body, the word, the concept, like it’s taking the good news to every individual cell, every one of them flooded with relief and gratitude and freedom, finally, freedom from their past as anything but a driving force into the future, and…

And Venom is glad to be alive. Glad to be free in the more literal sense, too.

Glad to have their self back, solid and strong. Every movement, unstoppable. Every thought, unassailable. No prison can hold them. No evil can sway them.

They tear through the night, exhilarated with every breath. In the clumsy, eager collision of their minds, they can feel the rush of their bloodstream, feel the far-off sound of sirens like electric fog washing up against them, and every point of pressure as their feet hit the ground lingers on, no subtle sensory memory discarded. Everything is sharp and bright and real, new in some way, but, at the same time, it would be wrong to call it foreign, alien. It makes more sense now than it ever did.

Without slowing down, Eddie pushes off and dives into the bay.

He feels the sting of the cold water, then the warmth spreading through him, soothing, as he lets himself sink. The warmth coalesces into his chest, into something burning, consuming, so satisfyingly hot and tight that he flattens his hand against his sternum as if to keep it there, and it’s rage, it’s pain, but more than anything else, it’s conviction, it’s passion. It’s everything he is. As he sinks into the symbiote, he sinks into himself.

The surface seems so far away, now, and he watches it sparkle under the searchlights, watches ribbons of darkness float above him, dancing with the water’s movements, still the most beautifully alive thing he’s ever seen. He waves his other hand through it, it's silky between his fingers, pliable in his mind, he wants to feel it, and it rubs at his pulse, the side of his wrist, the base of his thumb. Grinds into the centre of his palm. Desperate for anything he will give it.

More and more, he thinks it might be everything.

Suspended in darkness, the need to breathe leaves him. He kicks his legs, encumbered by his sweatpants, and, with some assistance and quite a lot of gratification, pulls them off. Watches them drift away like the last remnant of what he'd thought the rest of his life would be. The symbiote slides down his thighs, wrapping around them, strengthening them, then winds around his hips, his stomach, his chest, his biceps, hooking in deep underneath the skin, getting acclimated. Threading through his flesh, so happy to be welcomed home. Eddie’s heartbeat hits him hard and heavy. Hold on, he thinks, hold on tight, as he begins to swim.

-—-

They throw up their camouflage to make their way through the city - on all fours, leaping and swinging from building to building, irreverently - and head underground, into their current hideout in the sewers, only to take a moment to plan, to plot, to rejoice in all the possibilities that have reopened themselves to them.

They thrash through the tunnels, tongue trailing behind them, smashing into the wall as they take the last corner. Stumbling into their home, Eddie slows down and rights himself, symbiote receding until his laugh loses its reverberating echo and he looks deceptively human again.

"Wait," he forces out, surprised by his own voice's needy edge, a tendril trapped between his fingers. He tugs at it, and it relents, surprised, only a touch anxious, humming with energy. Eddie lets himself drop to the floor, legs crossed, as it forms something like a stretched-out torso in front of him.

He leans back and closes his eyes for a moment. Takes deep breaths, skin buzzing with exertion. Arms loose at his sides, open and relaxed. "I didn't think I'd get to see you again," he mumbles, adrenaline making articulation difficult, then opens his eyes to do just that impossible thing.

The sight of it settles something inside him. And yet, it stirs something, as well. Eddie grins to himself. He knows that feeling, of course. That contradiction.

Does it know it, too?

Something that's too much and not enough?

The symbiote seems taken aback. Somewhere between being understood and being threatened. Being threatened with understanding? Wanting it, fearing it-

"There it is," he says, just a bit too smug, just a bit too fond. The symbiote can't decide which agitates it more. "There it is," he laughs, and leans forward, hands in his lap, to push his face up against it.

It's smooth against his skin. His cheeks are aglow. There's that horrible, wonderful ache in his chest. It thinks of being underwater. It thinks of being overwhelmed. It thinks of forgetting. It lets him nuzzle into the crook of its neck. It thinks, maybe for the first time: Not enough.

Good, he thinks, simply, in incredible contrast to the complexity of the emotion they share. The symbiote seems to be contemplating something in his memories, digging for something to do, and two clawed hands hover next to his sides, his shoulders, his neck. Settle, gently, at the back of his head and the centre of his bare chest. It's such a human gesture, it must be monstrous, it thinks, when it does it. Eddie doesn't mind. He never does.

Remember, he thinks, remember when we first did this? Sat across from each other? Looked at each other? Touched each other, just a little?

The symbiote closes its eyes.

It had been so wounded, so lost. Maybe it hadn't noticed. Maybe it hadn't realised.

He'd wanted to run his hands across its body and search for a heartbeat. To dip them inside and look for some thrumming vibration, some life force, fragile and alien. He wanted to cradle it. He still does.

Right from the start, he thinks. Right from the start.

Softly, all throughout, the symbiote starts to rumble - that's how it deals with excess emotion, he knows, that's how it soothes itself - and he reaches out, pulls it up against himself, the contact so similar and yet so different to being held within it. Somehow changed by the intention to touch, not meld. He hums reassuringly.

Soft. Warm. Alive. There's the memory of it, oily, clammy, lifeless, dripping off of him. A corpse running through his fingers.

"There wasn't time," he says, pulling back, "to think, or talk. I realise that. I realise you chose to take the risk. But now..."

The symbiote slowly dissolves its arms and hands, feeling helpless again. Eddie digs into its back. "Should you ever be in the position to save yourself, but not me. I want you to do it." He tries to look into its eyes, intense, but can't hope to match the pearlescent expanse taking up his field of vision. "Understand?"

The symbiote's face splits open, grief-stricken, how dare he-

"It only makes sense," he placates it. "You can't exactly deny you have better odds at carrying on our mission than I do." He looks off to the side. "I had my plans, of course. I wasn't going to let you go unavenged. But..."

Plans? What plans? The symbiote catches glimpses of them- Dangerous- Stupid- Actively self-destructive-

It practically pounces, pinning him to the floor and hissing from somewhere deep within, sharp fangs hovering above his face- And Eddie pushes at it. Eddie hisses back, teeth bared, until it stops, more perplexed than anything.

"You've got the choice of several billion potential hosts," he says, with a hint of a growl, looking up at it. "I've only got the one you."

Its claws are tense against his skin. His chest falls and rises irregularly, gaze fixated on the subtle glint of its teeth, mind fixated on the weight of it on his stomach.

It only has the one Eddie. The world only has the one Eddie.

"Of course," he breathes, "but..."

It thinks it, again, more urgently. It pictures the planet, the masses of people out there, those who cannot handle its gifts, who do not want its gifts, who fear it, who hate it, who want it dead, who want it studied, who would not accept their union, who would not understand it, who would not prefer its substance to clothes, who would not twirl its tendrils when nervous, who would not hum old Sinatra songs while stalking their prey.

They're taken out of the picture, all of them, as it sweeps across continents, empty cities, barren wastes, as it focuses on New York, on the church, on Eddie. He carries the worth and the weight of the world. He is all that matters. He is all there is.

He's perfect.

And that, exactly that, that is the exact thing that tips the scales, that fills some crack in Eddie's soul, that could, he's keenly aware, expand and shatter it into a thousand pieces. The symbiote isn't unmarred by the outburst, either, it doesn't think it's ever expressed this much to anyone, about anyone-

And Eddie reaches for its face with shaking hands, and, quite inevitably, he thinks, presses his lips to it. There's a moment where it completely blanks out, and he rolls them over, kisses it, hard, kneeling above it. Kisses it again and again, and feels more bound to it each time, less able to pull away.

The symbiote can't do much but lie there, trying to adjust its texture into something he'd like, trying to figure out how to touch him, just letting it happen, ultimately, just leaning into his state of mind, focused, obsessed, all attention drawn to his mouth, too far gone to let it know what to do. There really are a lot of nerve endings there, it thinks, dazed. They really are nice.

He makes a noise at the smallest mirroring of his pleasure, the slightest sign that it's received, and it's ridiculous, he thinks, it's a ridiculous, inadequate gesture. In the face of what the symbiote is, it's completely laughable. There couldn't be a more shallow way to reciprocate, not when it's slipped underneath his skin and caressed his beating heart. If he could crawl inside it in any way that matters, he would, and it hurts, it hurts to feel that way, but not be made for it, and this is all he can give.

"Show me your teeth," he whispers, reverent. He feels them under his lips, the resistance of their smooth ridges. It makes him want to push harder and harder, push them into his mouth, even, into his throat, tear himself open on them. He's determined to kiss every single one, for now. He works his mouth against them, slowly making his way across, until his jaw starts to feel sore, and it's only enough to ease the worst of it, the worst of it all.

He isn't sure the reality he comes back to is the same one.

"Are you okay?" he asks, breathless.

The symbiote gives an honest-to-goodness chirp, squinting at him.

Eddie swallows and turns away, so as to avoid losing his mind once and for all.

He forces himself off of it like he's peeling himself off of a hot stove.

"We don't have forever to strike," he says, voice strained. "Element of surprise and whatnot. We certainly don't want to get caught down here." He crawls into the corner of the room, going through the stacks of flyers with notes scribbled on them that have accumulated there. Focus.

"The most important thing to keep in mind is that we can't afford a repeat of last time." They need to isolate him, far from unexpected third parties, far from innocent bystanders. Somewhere they can take their time eviscerating him. They need a location and a way to get him there. Simple enough, surely. For the latter, he's got something that should immobilise him. For the former... Somewhere he can't escape...

He sorts through it all, for a time, through abandoned and out-of-the-way places, he's always been good at sniffing those out. Then he turns around to look at the symbiote, surprised it hasn't zipped back inside him yet, and-

And the symbiote is not what he sees. Instead, of all the people in the world, it's Felicia Hardy, standing right behind him- Felicia Hardy, but wrong. Strange, dead eyes, waxy face lacking in detail, quivering like a ghostly image. It's too much to process in a split second, and before Eddie's even gotten so far as to think of what and when and why and how, he's yelped like a small startled dog and lashed out, gut clenching in terror as his fist hits her face and- drags it along- stretching it- collapsing it, just like that-

Just like-

Goo?

The punch ends with him falling flat on his behind and scrambling backwards, up against the wall, chest fizzling with fear. Felicia dissolves, then, painlessly and soundlessly, and, oh.

Eddie feels like his muscles do the same. "Oh God," he says, strangled. "Oh, Jesus, Mary and Joseph." He drags one hand down his face.

Why would it make him think they'd been discovered by the Black Cat's reanimated corpse?

The symbiote just sits there, a pile of vibrating goo, projecting distress too great to hide. "Okay," he says to himself, cautiously coming closer. He places a hand on top of it. It's got an unfamiliar, almost creamy consistency, and he catches a thought, the image of it, the two of them, the contact, off and wrong and strange.

If it's off and wrong and strange, he thinks, then that's what feels right to him. They can be off and wrong and strange together.

Though not like- Not like Imitation Felicia, maybe. What, exactly...?

Two eyes emerge on top of the gloop. Immediately recede again.

Eddie sighs. With exaggerated motions, he gathers it into a circle between his arms and plops his head down on top of it like it's a pillow. His face slowly starts to sink into it. He's not leaving.

He's just listening. Feeling for it, rather.

The symbiote burbles.

It only wanted to kiss him. It only wanted to be someone kissable.

Peter kissed, wanted to kiss Felicia all the time. It remembers how she reacted, too. It's a reference point. It's a part it could've played for him. It wouldn't have felt out of place, whether it's passive or active, then. It could've given him what he's supposed to have. He wouldn't have thought of how absurd it is.

"That's not," Eddie says, and swallows. "It's not like that."

It could've pulled it off, if he'd worked with it.

"You know I don't want to kiss Felicia. There's no way you don't know that."

It wouldn't have been her! It would've just gotten to feel like it. Like it isn't either failing at being a symbiote or failing at being a person. It would've been able to fit.

His knees are starting to ache. He takes the big ol' puddle of slime under his arm and drags it over to their mattress. Pulls it into his lap, even as it gurgles.

If he thinks it's Other, it's... because it's his Other. His kind. His other half. His. That barrier may stand between them and the rest of the world, but never him and it.

Still. They're out of sync, clearly. They can't act as one. Venom won't get anywhere when they're at odds, when they're not confident in who they are. 

It doesn't understand what he wants at all, does it?

It doesn't. And it's terrifying.

Alright, Eddie thinks. Alright.

He'll tell it what to do.

The symbiote rises. Feeling... relieved, knowing that this is what it wanted. Feeling oddly betrayed, at the same time, without knowing why.

Eddie smiles, a touch mischievous. He thinks of it, and him, and his mouth, but not in the way it'd expected. The symbiote flows over the lower half of his face, stops just underneath his cheekbones, and for a moment, it simply cradles him, tender, as he lets it tip his head back. Make it real, he thinks.

It seeps through the skin, letting it peel away, letting the tissue of his cheeks come apart. Eddie feels it like something between an itch being scratched and a deep tension being massaged away. He lets his eyes fall closed, following it as it works, so much more thorough than usual, downright indulgent, almost meditative.

His bones come loose and start shifting, then, and he asks it to go slow, not because it hurts, just to draw it out. He turns to sling an arm across its back, head turned to it, pulling it up against his side, hand toying with tendrils at the back of its neck. Half aware, half content. His gums dissolve to let his teeth, rapidly taking on the shape of shark teeth, move and settle with a satisfying pull and pop and push.

No less tender, that.

The symbiote's mass fills in what it doesn't rebuild. Eddie runs a hand across his jaw, sensation split between his own and its more muted, more precise perception, and sees himself through its eyes. Wicked rows of fangs hugging his face's silhouette. It looks... right. It feels right.

These are some of the best kisses he's ever received.

He runs hot and cold with the symbiote's reaction. It's not-

Why not? It's intimate. It's romantic. It's intense. There's nobody to tell them no. There's only him to tell it- yes. It's a- fantastic kisser. He grins, wide and wider.

The symbiote studies him, inside and out. Romance, it thinks. Nothing could be so foreign and so familiar.

It could become more familiar by becoming more foreign. Becoming more like it, and him, and them. Not fitting it- Making it fit them.

It wants to try.

Eddie pushes his hands through the symbiote, like dipping them into thick, viscous, black paint. He gets to feel his fingernails sliding smoothly from their beds, claws forming, pulling together tight as they harden, sharpen. He hums with it, flexes his fingers, one after the other. Holds them up against the light to admire them. What they mean.

Power. Power is the knowledge, more certain than anything, that they are their own. No one can control them, define them, reject them. They can do whatever they want.

His eyes turn to it, for a moment. Then he takes its head in his talons, one under its jaw, one on top, and presses his teeth to it, firm. Holds the kiss, then pulls back, swipes one thumb where its mouth would be. Show you mine, show me yours, he thinks, and the symbiote’s face splits open all sharp and jagged to match, nipping at his fingers.

It's strange.

Is it good?

It tries it. It tries pushing its teeth into the palm of his hand. It's nonsense. It's whatever comes to mind. It's not an imitation of anything else.

It manifests a tongue, wet and warm and rough, and drags it up from his wrist to his fingertips, and he shudders, involuntarily. Pushes closer. And that's it, maybe, that's it. That's what kissing is. Reactions.

It tries. It tries curling its tongue against his cheek, and he laughs, softly, feels a matching tongue take anchor deep in his chest, then licks at its mouth, playful. Bites at its shoulder, revelling in the feeling of fangs sinking into its texture.

It begins to wrap its tongue around his neck, and the contact sparks a need for more of it, and one pair of clawed hands emerges from his sides, one from his thighs, one from his shoulders, one from his chest, squeezing him, because if it can't figure out where it should be, it might as well be everywhere, sliding slowly across his skin. Eddie's gripping its front, crushing its spider symbol in one palm, throat tight and muscles tense under it, and he feels, it realises, kind of like it did when it was being kissed so intensely. Like he's being kissed, so intensely.

The problem being, of course, that it feels just the same as he does, and, ironically, maybe - it's not thinking as straight as it could - it not being enough, it, with a quickening pulse under its tongue, not being enough, proves to be too much. It releases him, all at once. He exhales.

"Yes," he says, strained. "Yes, we... I... Thank you." His skin is burning for the sudden lack of pressure. The symbiote tries not to think about it. "We're... We should be ready now. We should be... strong."

It slithers inside him as he gets up - and only almost stumbles. He puts a hand against his forehead. "We've clarified our purpose once again. We've got our bond to fight for."

It agrees.

It's good.

Eddie quirks a brow, amused. "Well. Once we put an end to this, we'll be able to... focus on ourselves." He picks a note out of the stack, hastily copied from old newspaper clippings. A deserted island.

"Are you ready? Ready to rip him asunder? By the arms or the legs, your preference." He thinks of the scraps of his solo plans he might be able to salvage. His information is spotty at best. "We don't want to rush anything, though. Are you ready to..."

He licks across his fangs.

"...go to the library?"

The symbiote encloses him, purring meaningfully. Without a moment's hesitation, Venom takes off.


End file.
